You wake up somewhere you haven't been before, gazing up at a tree the size of a skyscraper. The ground is dried and cracked, furrowed by roots and tangled lines left by old rivers. The sky is clouded by a curtain of dust thick enough to choke you. You are shadowed by trees bigger than skyscrapers, their bare branches reaching across the sky like mummified hands. Their shadow does little to dampen the heat clinging to everything.

You don't know how you got here. And you aren't sure if you can leave. All you can do is walk. And walk you do.

You wander aimlessly across a landscape unfamiliar to you.

You seek, for anything other than the dull browns that surround you. The ground, the air, the trees, all of it sits as the same muddy brown, going on for miles. You start to wonder if this is the only color to exist anymore.

You lose track of how far you wander. It may have been a day; it may have been seconds. You don't feel hungry, nor do you feel yourself grow tired. All you can do is walk amongst the remains of a world that died long before you set foot here. All you can see are trees, hundreds upon hundreds of the same, giant trees made of twisting vines cracked by age and dry air and roots thick around as cars.

Eventually, you find yourself climbing a hill made out of twisted roots, bringing yourself up higher and higher, until you stand about halfway up the length of one of the trees. The climb is long, and hard. And here, for the first time in maybe a week, you feel exhausted. It feels as if you could sink into the roots and stay there, forever, locked in a bed of tangled vines.

You press on despite this, until you reach the top and can look out upon the tree in front of you. It looks no different from the others. Nothing about any of this seems special in the slightest. You start to wonder why you wasted your energy in climbing the root in the first place as you begin debating making your way back down. Maybe, you can find your way back to where you came from and find an exit out of this place? Maybe, you aren’t forever lost in this dismal place.

And then, you hear it. A voice, not like any voice you've heard before, murmuring in the back of your mind in a way that rings like a church bell. Low, tired, dull, almost; a drone without emotion.

"They were gods… once."

​

You look up, then whirl around, seeking the source of this voice to no avail. The air is as empty of life as it was moments before. Yet, you feel something there, lurking just out of your field of vision no matter which way you turn. 

"And now, they’re hungry," it carries on, uncaring for your confusion. It speaks, almost as if perturbed as to why it speaks. As if even it doesn’t truly understand what it speaks of.

"And when they don't get fed…" hesitation, just for a second. The word hangs uncomfortably in your mind. 

Could that be sadness in its voice? 

You can’t tell, not for sure.

"…they scream."

As quick as it had come, the voice and its presence vanish, abandoning you atop this crest of a hill with nothing but trees, dead land, and the ringing echo of its final words. What could be hungry in this place? What is alive enough here to scream? 

Neither question seems to have an answer.

You hear a creak from behind that splinters the still air like a gunshot. Then, another, longer creak and the sound of wood splintering and flesh tearing. 

You turn again to the trees and, rather abruptly, are forced to realize that what you are looking at is not truly a tree. The tangled vines that had made it up now resemble limbs and bodies, twisted and distorted, melded together into the shape of a tree that now has eyes and a face.

Which is staring down at you.

You stumble backward as a figure taller than a building tries to wrench itself free of the mass it has been melded into, tearing apart flesh and wood alike as it attempts to pry itself free of its prison. Its eyes, dry and rolling wildly in their sockets, try to focus on you as it breaks a hand free and begins to reach for your body. A mouth like a cave, decorated with sharp spines that might be teeth, pries itself open, ready to become your grave.

You trip as you stumble away, finding yourself falling backward and tumbling down the rough hill. The hand crashes into the place you had just been standing, clawing wildly at the dirt as if hoping digging a hole into the earth would magically bring you back to that place.

You can see it leaning over the hill now, its head barely reaching over the crest of it as it continues to try and pry itself free of the tree. It claws its way toward you, using the larger roots strewn about the ground to slowly drag itself forward.

Still, you remain out of reach, even just barely. And this seems to anger the broken remains of a being.

And, in this anger, it starts to scream.

You clench your hands over your ears at the horrible sound, which hangs in the air like a tornado siren. You feel as if your eardrums may burst, only able to press your hands to your ears while using your legs to scramble blindly backward in terror.

Your faint attempt and shielding yourself does little as another scream joins the first, and another body creaks and splinters its way free. The ground itself wavers as limbs, many of them without bodies attached, awake from the shape of roots they had been placed in and reach for you.

That scream permeates everything, shaking you down to your bones and worming its way stubbornly into your mind.

You bolt upright in bed, hands clawing at the sheets and heart racing in your ears. Silence greets you, other than the faint hum made by the fan sitting in the corner that you haven't turned off in a year. The sun isn't up yet, leaving the rest of the room cloaked in heavy shadows.

You know you are safe, once the panic calms down. There shouldn’t be reason to fear. The day will carry on as if nothing had happened and the dream will remain just that: a dream. The trees, that dry, desolate land, and that voice, were all just figments your mind twisted together to try and form a story. 

Yet, despite the assurances, the dream doesn’t leave your mind. And that empty, sorrowful voice – not the screams of the trees – hangs heavy in the forefront of your thoughts.